New book on ecology of fishes is making waves

“The Ecology of Marine Fishes,” Biology Department chair Larry Allen’s monumental new reference work on the fishes that inhabit the eastern Pacific—especially those in the waters off the California and Baja California coastlines—is making waves in the marine world.

The first of its kind to deal with California and adjacent waters, the book is a “dream come true” for graduate students, said Scripps Institution of Oceanography doctoral candidate Brad Erisman, a former Allen student. They now can tap one source instead of spending “countless hours tracking down old manuscripts.”

Resource agencies, fisheries management associations and virtually anyone with an interest in coastal resources and management will find a trove of information in “The Ecology of Marine Fishes.”

A $40,000 grant from the Packard Foundation, along with monies from the American Fisheries Society, enabled Allen and his co-editors—biology professors Daniel Pondella II of Occidental College and Michael Horn of CSU Fullerton—to publish the full-color volume.

Described as a “masterful accomplishment” by marine biologists such as Peter Sale, a University of Windsor professor and an international authority on communities of fish in coral reef habitats, “The Ecology of Marine Fishes” is expected to earn a place as the primary text in university-level fish biology courses, and to serve as a cornerstone for future research in the field.